ASK Cubby- You Write The Questions, I Pretend To Have Read Them

“Noob help

I love you reviews on different r/c products and vehicles. I am new to the hobby and I am looking to make my first real investment in an rtr I have been looking at the Losi TEN-STCE RTR and the 8ight-E RTR. Simply which one would you recommend and also what charger would you recommend? Thank you in advance for your help.

Best regards,

Adam S.”

Cubby- Well aloha there Adam and thanks for the email. Ya, don’t forget to shoot us your snail mail for the hook-up on a BSRC sticker pack.

First up… you mention that you plan on investing in a RTR. That would be a terrible “investment”, so please don’t consider it as such. If you want to invest, right now I am recommending platinum and helium, but about the last thing I would recommend is any rc vehicle as they depreciate like mad the moment you crack the box open. If you don’t believe me, price around pretty much any used rc car on Craigslist and you’ll see what I mean.

Then we get to… the age old “which is better” question, the Losi SCTE or the 8IGHT-E? IMO that depends a ton of personal needs. Both are rock solid, both handle incredibly well, and both have extremely fast power systems. The SCTE gets points for more of a scale appearance and its big bumpers to soak up hits, but would have to be downgraded slightly compared to the 8IGHT-E because its large SCT body can have some parachute effect on windy days. If I had to downgrade the 8IGHT-E it would be its UFO appearance and the fact that you’ll need to run higher cell count (more $$$) batteries. To boil it down, both are outstanding and will blow your mind as you are new to our hobby.

Lastly… what battery charger am I recommending right now? For day to day use I really like using the Hitec X1 Touch. It has enough yank for charging most normal packs (up to 7 amps) and can charge 6S packs if you end up going the 8th scale route. But mainly I like it because its touch screen is darn nice to use. If you need more power they have an X1 200 Touch that can charge at up to 12 amps.

“amz 4wd atomic

Hello my name is Carlos, I am in El Salvador and have all the accessories for the 1/27th scale atomic amz 4wd running on a black foam track, but i need some help on how to tune this car…

Thanks in anticipation

Carlos M.”

Cubby- Wow Carlos, just when I thought I knew it all I am reminded that there are still a few cars on the market that I’ve never even laid eyes on, the Atomic AMZ being one of them. I have no idea what it looks like, no idea what it drives like, and zero first hand knowledge on needed upgrades.

However… I do know how to tune a car, so here are some basics. You might already know these, if so they might come in handy for the noobs out there reading.

Lets go over the two most common driving issues on an on-road car- oversteer and understeer.

Oversteer – This means your car turns too much. This may show itself as traction rolling, being overly darty to input from the steering wheel, or when the front end is stuck like glue in corners but the rear is sliding all over the place. How do you fix it? For starters you can go to stiffer springs and/or damping in the front shocks. You can also try to soften up the rear suspension, or for foam on-road driving, using less tire sauce on the front (like only saucing the inside half of the tire) while using more sauce on the rear.

Understeer – Yes, this is the opposite of oversteer, meaning that your car doesn’t have enough steering. If your car is understeering you might notice that it doesn’t want to turn-in at corner entry or keep a line during later parts of a corner. You might also notice that the rear of your car seems glued to the track, never sliding out, while the front pushes for days. To fix understeer you’ll go to softer settings in the front of your car and firmer in the rear. You can also try saucing the entire width of the front tires while not saucing the rear tires at all, or just their inner half.

Entire books can be written on car tuning, but I’m really too lazy to go any further than that in an ASK Cubby. Cheers and don’t forget to shoot us a snail mail for a free sticker pack.

So there ya have it folks, that’s it for ASK Cubby this week. Shoot me your questions to Cubby at BigSquidRC.com. I won’t read them, but if you are lucky an intern will forward the good ones to me.